Many activities, especially athletic activities, involve potential risk to the body from impact. Elbows, knees, shoulders, ankles, hips and other joints can be especially susceptible to impact damage and yet are challenging to protect without restricting the range of motion and movement of the individual. Impact protection can be heavy, non-breathable or restrictive, or alternatively does not target certain body parts accurately, or does so inconsistently.
Some impact protection systems consist of separate rigid pads that are heavy, and restrict motion. The rigid components can be lined with some form of soft cushioning to make them comfortable against the body, which is an attempt to cushion impacts to the body, but the extra layers add to the weight and discomfort of the pads. In addition, the padding systems can be hot to wear, and also restrict the evaporation of moisture and sweat.
Other protective pads are made from materials that are softer, so they bend, but offer little in the way of protection against a serious impact, especially an impact from a rock or other hard object. These materials include standard chemically foamed polyether or polyester foams.
Other padding can be made from stiffer foam materials, such as cross-linked polyethylene foams or EVA foams. Such foams offer a bit more protection, but restrict the user's range of motion. Overall, such materials offer insufficient protection, while restricting motion.
There also have been attempts to use stiffer foams as pads, but the foam had to be cut in strips in order to reduce the restriction of movement that a solid foam piece would cause. Unfortunately for the wearer, the strips offered less than optimal protection.
Foam can also be thermoformed into curved or complex shapes, and sewn between layers of material that holds the strips or pieces in place. Other materials that offer better impact absorption such as d30 have also been used in padding, but these materials are also stiff.
Attempts have been made to make the foregoing materials appear less stiff to the wearer by creating thinner regions in each piece which allows better flexing. But protective pads manufactured this way cannot offer full range of motion at the location of the padding, because the material breaks apart when flexed at the thinner areas. These materials also need to be buried beneath layers of fabric because they are not durable or aesthetically pleasing enough to be exposed. The use of covering materials adds unnecessary weight to the padding, and increases the cost of the pads.
A need exists for improved breathable, protective padding, particularly for areas requiring range of motion, and for joints.